I have a running joke with some of my friends. I don't think we've ever really named it, but if we were going to call it something, I imagine we'd call it "The Test." At least, that's what I call it in my head. The Test. Over the years we've all eventually admitted (all but one, and I think he's lying) that whenever we meet someone new, they are subjected to some version of The Test. It's a casual thing, informal, not always rigorous, and the results (and oh yes, we tabulate the results avidly) aren't always binding...but there's always The Test.
I think you know what I mean, but here are some examples. One of my friends has a list of questions, such as, What three books are on your bedside table? What music have you got on your ipod? And my favourite: If you could choose between two bowls of olives, one of which was full of olives that were pretty good, and another which was mostly full of not-that-good olives but that had a few that were absolutely delicious, which bowl would you choose? Others stick to actions-speak-louder-than-words tests: politeness to wait staff is measured; punctuality is noted; whose car door is unlocked first is carefully considered. There are hug tests and handshake tests, clothing tests and vocabulary tests and shoe-pant-factor tests and really, now that I'm writing it all down, I realize that I'm making us sound a just a little bit judgmental. I don't think we are, at least, not any more than the next person. There are a million ways to take the measure of a person and we use more than a few of them. In the end, I also think we'd all agree that The Test is just a preliminary measure; that there's no real substitute for getting to know someone.
I've been thinking about The Test recently. Last week I did some cleaning and rearranging around the house, and I think it was all the bedside-table-book-rearranging and CD-pile-shuffling that put it into my mind. What's more revealing: the titles of the CDs I have piled up next to the CD player; the fact that they're just stacked atop one another, willy-nilly, no cases to be seen; or that I still prefer playing discs all the way through over switching on iTunes and letting the computer shuffle away? Does my precarious bedside table book arrangement (which includes What to Eat by Marion Nestlé, a copy of the New Yorker, the His Dark Materials trilogy and a battered Rosamunde Pilcher novel) indicate wide and varied interests, or a desperate need for another bookcase? I don't know.
Anyway, these days, my test is a little more streamlined. Books and music and car doors, yes, I guess I'm still interested, but really, I'm only thinking about one question: What do you DO? My answer is simple – I make things with my hands. Photos, words on a page, dinner, dessert, quilts, socks, sweaters - all put there by my two hands. That's what I do. It's who I am. And now I'm wondering...what do *you* do? (And do you have a version of The Test? I'm curious!)
So, I think it's time to change things up a little bit around here. I've been thinking it on and off for a while, actually, and as my work blog picks up pace, and as my third anniversary in this spot approaches, I've been thinking it more and more frequently. 
I have a running joke with some of my friends. I don't think we've ever really named it, but if we were going to call it something, I imagine we'd call it "The Test." At least, that's what I call it in my head. The Test. Over the years we've all eventually admitted (all but one, and I think he's lying) that whenever we meet someone new, they are subjected to some version of The Test. It's a casual thing, informal, not always rigorous, and the results (and oh yes, we tabulate the results avidly) aren't always binding...but there's always The Test.
On Saturday I participated in my first ever TTC Knitalong. It was a citywide shop hop with three routes: North, West, and East. My friend Tina and I were on the East team, and we were busy. I'm talking leave the house at 9am and don't get home til 7 pm, five yarn stores, three skeins of yarn*, two sets of knitting needles, 50 chatty knitters, seven streetcar rides, one burrito, one beer, one street-meat hotdog and a fly-by pigeon pooping later. Yeah. Exhausting.
